Winter’s icy grip

Well this winter has been taxing and it is not even April 15th yet. Though I was born in cold country, I successfully have avoided significant bonding with snow and non-edible Eskimo pies for most of my adult life. Oh sure everyone’s a fan of the white stuff when eying a shiny curvaceous igloo or better yet, slathering up with a big slab of blubber before a ski outing. But it takes a brawny breed better than me to brave nature’s coldest shoulders when the ice chips are truly down.

The cave I call home and in my travels out and about remind me more of Siberia every day. 5 foot piles of street and parking-lot snow have condensed into homely and dirty icy ‘acne lumps’ all over town. I actually don’t mind having the frozen tundra cover my weedy lawn though. Not only does the morning paper slide a lot closer to the door, but when I go out to get the rag I enjoy startling the deer and watching their white tails slip and stumble in terror over the headlines.

Maybe it’s just that I have just reached geezer status, but for the first time in my life I have donned a heated blanket to keep my tootsies toasty too. Have you seen the safety warnings that accompany these big furry hunks of cloth? With that Christmas tree wiring harness, I am actually afraid to fold the thing, much less SLEEP under it. I’m not sure how I will wash off all those bed-ridden bugs when my bad ‘blankie’ starts to smell ‘rankie’ and stand on its own in the corner.

So these are the frigid fingers that Winter’s hand has dealt this year. I know soon enough, like everyone else, I will be fighting the rain, hail, wind, and the swampy heat too. I try to see that the frosty mug is always half full, despite the challenges of any season. I complain a lot but at least in the Winter the garage has its own mighty icy grip on a lot more frozen waffles and popsicles than any of my wimpy refrigerators do!